floof.org
Microsoft is apparently genuinely shaken by the fact that Linux outperforms Windows on handheld systems.
So shaken that they've halted the plans for an Xbox handheld and put the entire team that was working on that on trying to make Windows perform better on said handhelds.
They've been too busy concentrating on "AI" garbage and it's catching up with them. Linux is better for gaming right now in a lot of cases, that was their bread and butter for a lot of home users.
The king is wounded.
Happy #PrideMonth - it's time to be extra loud and extra proud and support each other in any and every way we can. ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜
Much love to everyone from this cuddly Ace chee! 🤗
One of the worst things about digital privacy, is that so few people care about it. Or more often, they make you out to be the weird one for caring.
It's like when people threw fits about masking during the Covid pandemic. And treated people that cared about masking like they were the ones doing something wrong.
When it comes to digital privacy, pretty much everyone is that guy that refuses to wear a mask.
Here we go again...
'Football and other premium TV being pirated at 'industrial scale' -- BBC News Headline.
So, perhaps charge less for it? Make it available for people who want to pay for it. Stop insisting that people pay for 20 channels they don't need so they can see one event that you have got tied up in an exclusivity deal. Stop region locking. Stop putting trackers and spyware into your delivery mechanism. Stop being such utter bastards about something that you used to pump into the air for the cost of a TV licence or having to watch 5 minutes of untargeted, non-spying adverts every 15 minutes.
A News Corporation company used a professional hacker to help destroy Sky TV's biggest rival, BBC Panorama reports.BBC News
Just listened to this song by a fox named coyote, and damn, it hit hard.
https://afoxnamedcoyote.bandcamp.com/track/i-wish-i-loved-you
I wasn't at Confuzzled last weekend but I've loved hearing about all the great times those of you who were had! I may return, but for now here's me being a cyber derg in 2023.
📷 Zuki
🧵 @selkiesuits
⌚ #FursuitFriday
Many years ago, the writers of the original 'TRON' had an actor say "Computers will start thinking and people will stop."
We now know, thanks to various LLMs and the generative 'AI' that they didn't wait for computers to start thinking. They didn't even wait for something that could pass the Turing test.
benoit blanc vs hercule poirot - rap battle! - ft. the stupendium, rustage, gianni matragrano & moreCAST:The Stupendium as Hercule Poirot@TheStupendium Shwab...YouTube
El Gran Elote
Durj said he's going to eat just ONE corn this time.
Drawn during an art jam at TFF 2025 for Durj the raccoon.
Patatús is not in a hurry.
He’s got a backpack full of snacks, glasses way too big for his face, and absolutely no plan.
Just enough time to stare at details like a butterfly and suddenly remember:
"Oh wow, I’m alive. This is real!"
He's Patatús, the opossum.
Digital. Procreate
-----
You can see the short time-lapse process video on the first comment on my Telegram art channel: https://t.me/panda_paco
On Patreon and Ko-Fi you can see the full process video, as well the high resolution of this and all my pictures, all the process videos I get to record or export from Procreate, and I'm sharing drawings and WIPs before anywhere else. And at subscribing, you are supporting me to keep creating more art, I have so many more ideas and projects I want to do, that's why it is so important to me all the support you give me there, I appreciate it a lot.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/pandapaco
Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/panda_paco
Thank you!
I do wonder why I'm subscribed to Rational Animations sometimes. I suppose so that I get a different view on things, but almost everything they publish seems to make me feel uneasy, a kind of background of distant horror. This is probably not helped by the way they focus on "AI" so much, and talk about it as if it's inevitable that current LLMs will necessarily evolve into superhuman intelligences. Thing is, AI has been "nearly here" for many decades and I normally think the current generative "AI" boom is simliar to previous iterations, in that it will eventually be realised that it's maybe a useful tool for some things, but definitely not a general intelligence, any more than ELIZA was, or expert systems were. But people like those at Rational Animations keep almost convincing me otherwise and the consequences of human intelligence suddenly being surpassed by a barely-formed, immature super-human intelligence system with misaligned goals and no concept of consequences are very disturbing to think about.
I did briefly try out an LLM when I noticed that DuckDuckGo had one that promised privacy. I tried asking about foxtaurs, because they are something I've been thinking a lot about lately. It just claimed they weren't a thing. At all. So I asked about centaurs, to which it reeled off a screed about classical centaurs, complete with tables of details, probably pulled off some web site, as if they were real. They I asked about foxtaurs again and it gave me the same screed, including the same tables, but with some details changed. Reading a little closer it becomes obvious that it hasn't a clue what it's talking about, for example, it listed a tail under "facial features"! No, these things still don't have the capacity to "think" about anything that isn't in their training data set. They *are* very interesting natural language query interfaces to that training data set, but I'm not honestly sure they are much more than that yet. I don't think we're really much closer to general intelligence AIs than we were… and unlike when I was young, I don't think I'm interested in us getting to general intelligence AI.
Rational Animations is a fully remote international team of about 40 artists, writers, and tech dorks collaborating together. We are fans of dogs, stories, animation, learning, and doing good.YouTube
Hmm, how about I put it this way. If an AI is "trained", it's just going to be a mishmash of its training data. If instead it is *brought up*, in a perhaps similar way to how a human is brought up, maybe it'll have a chance to understand things properly.
How would a human child turn out if we just force-fed them the contents of the internet instead of loving, nurturing and educating them properly?
I don't want to outsource my thinking to a machine.
I don't want "art" averaged from some aggregation of actual artists' work.
I can write my own fucking emails.
I can write my own fucking code and design my own fucking games.
And I want art that comes from the brains of human artists. Who feel and whose soul goes into their work.
All this stuff is clever and I am sure there are uses for it but the things that are actually valuable in life can't be reduced to a fucking prompt.
FFS. 🦬
RC Mouse
But what "RC" stands for? I always wonder, and he never answers, so I guess it is about giving our own interpretation.
Él se llama RiCardo, Ricardo el Ratón.
Drawing during an art jam at TFF 2025, with RC Mouse
"What would we do without Google maps?"
Well, to be honest, probably prepare more adequately, get more proficient at map reading, and keep more maps on us in case we needed them. Y'know, like we did before ubiquitous online maps were a thing…
Don't forget, if you are here, in the Fediverse, you are very likely in the 10% of people who
a) Think and analyse the world
b) Care
c) Want to do the right thing
Microsoft: "we gonna screenshot every 3 seconds and feed it to Windows 11's AI assistant."
Signal: "This dangerous. Please put option to disable"
Microsoft: "No! Everything will be fed to the AI, except DRM protected content of course."
Microsoft: .....
Microsoft: ".. Don't you dare-"
Signal: *Calls to DRM API to protect user privacy*
Ah yes the famous:
So, what did I do today?
(6 photos, you may have to click through to the original instance to see them all.)
Content warning: uspol, on why policing gender is absolutely antithetical to the first amendment
Content warning: on why policing gender is absolutely antithetical to the first amendment
Have you tried turning it off and back on again?
Have you tried not using Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Apple products?
Have you tried not using generative AI?
I just failed a captcha because I was thinking in British. The captcha required the identification of all fire hydrants, which over here are holes in the ground with a cover that has the letters 'F H' moulded into it, sometimes. They categorically are not the curiously shaped iron/steel erections that pop out of the ground in parts of the United States.
The more I see of this, the more sympathy I have with Max Zorin.
When the world’s policeman and paramedic turns into the world’s mafia godfather, we have a problem which few world leaders are willing to a knowledge…
There are millions of global casualties to #Trump’s DOGE cuts. Deaths are occurring daily because of his actions and the safety of the US has been severely compromised. Science is financially in retreat.
There is a void therefore that needs to be met with action. Other countries must fill the breach. But they won’t accept US they knew is dead.
I'm beginning to realise that the way to write good stories is to come up with some characters you really like… then torture them without mercy. Absolutely put them through the wringer. Ensure they barely survive, and that (at least if they were normal people) they'll suffer PTSD forever more. Then do it some more.
I'm not sure I have the stomach to be that kind of writer.
